A senior trade and manufacturing advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump is refuting a media report that claimed he advised Trump to remove Canada from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.
“This nonsense from the Financial Times is a product of a culture in the media where they report stories and never name their sources. My view is that we should never have to comment on any story where it’s based on unnamed sources,” Navarro told reporters Tuesday.
Calling the story “just crazy stuff,” Navarro went on to say that the U.S. “would never, ever jeopardize our national security, ever, with allies like Canada.”
The Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance composed of national security agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The Financial Times alleged that Navarro had “proposed expelling Canada” from the intelligence network and that he’d ignored their request for comment before publishing the story.
Trump has been saying for months that wants to annex Canada and vowed to use “economic force” to acquire it.
The Financial Times claimed that its sources informed them that “Navarro, who has easy access to the Oval Office due to his close relationship with Trump, is arguing that the US should increase pressure on Canada by evicting the country from the Five Eyes.”
This week, the U.S. president pledged to implement 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian imports as his administration’s one-month reprieve is set to expire on March 4.
The origins of the Five Eyes were formed in 1941 during the Second World War as the U.S. and Britain began sharing intelligence to crack German codes.
Canada was the next country to join the network in 1948.
According to Public Safety Canada, “these partner countries share a broad range of intelligence with one another in one of the world’s most unified multilateral arrangements.”
“The Five Eyes agreement stands out from other arrangements because the parties are diverse societies, governed by rule of law and robust human rights and are bonded by a common language. These characteristics aid partners in sharing information with one another to protect their shared national interests,” it said.